July 2015 Grandmaster Spotlight: Petar Drenchev

This month we are going to be examining the life and games of GM Petar Drenchev. GM Drenchev has a FIDE rating of 2465 and is the 18th highest rated player from Bulgaria. He earned the IM title in 2007 and the GM title in 2011. Drenchev received his GM title later in life than you usually see. This gives hope to the rest of us that it’s possible to achieve results after the age of 20. I couldn’t find a lot of information on Drenchev. His Wikipedia is sparse as are the other places that I checked. It was also somewhat difficult to find games that he’s played. He only has three pages on chessagames.com.

As usual when you look at a lot of games by one player things tend to stick out to you. After looking at Drenchev’s games, I noticed that things tend to “work out” for him. It sounds ridiculous, I know. One of his strengths is that he detects the subtle imbalances in the position. It seems like as soon as his opponent’s pieces lack harmony, he jumps all over them. The following game is a nice example, especially around move 30:

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Another thing I found was that Drenchev, like most GM’s, has great tactical vision. It goes along with what I was saying earlier about the harmony in the position. This next game is a fun example of an opponent tricking himself:

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This next one is a nice example of things just “working out” for Drenchev:

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As is the case with most strong players Drenchev knows the fundamentals. Here he creates more space, seizes the open file, and dominates the ending.

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With a lot of these lesser known GM’s, I like to give them a frame of reference. I do this by showing you a game with an elite player. In this game he scores a draw from a difficult position against Jobava in 2012.

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